Teenagers perish in Davao’s ‘killing fields’

( First of a series )

DAVAO CITY – In one of the many hovels crammed inside Bankerohan, this city’s largest public market, Christmas is about to come and go unnoticed once more. While the Alia family is no stranger to a joyless Christmas, this year’s yuletide has been exceptionally sad. The family is still mourning the death of yet another Alia child, who last month was added to a growing list of teenagers sacrificed in a brutal war against crime.

Clarita Alia, who hauls vegetables in a tiny cart for a living, used to have eight children. Now she has only five. She lost her second child Richard in July 2001. Three months later, it was Christopher’s turn. Next was Bobby, who died just this November.

Richard was only 18 when he was killed, while Christopher was 16, and Bobby, 14. All three were knifed to death, and while authorities have done little to investigate their cases, practically everyone assumes their deaths were part of the extra-judicial killings that have been plaguing Davao City in the last few years.

A significant number of those killed have been minors who had been in conflict with the law – just like the Alia brothers. Tambayan, a local child-rights group, estimates that at least 104 people, most of them male, have been victims of such extra-judicial killings since August 1998.

Of the 41 cases documented by the group from March 1999 to November this year, 20 involved boys who were 18 years old and below. Not one of these cases has been solved, even if the killers – said to range from gang members, to ex-rebels, to policemen – are known in the local community.

For a city touted to be the country’s largest, Davao in the last several years has been able to keep an enviable peace-and-order record. Unlike in other urban centers, one can walk Davao’s streets even at 2 a.m. with few worries about being mugged. Police visibility is good, and Davaoeños take pride in the fact that there has not been any gang wars in their city for quite a while now. For this reason, Davao has become the envy of other cities, which now want to follow in its footsteps.

That, however, may mean taking a very bloody path. Clarita Alia is not alone in believing her three young sons and others like them have been killed as part of what is popularly seen as a successful, if unorthodox, strategy for battling crime.

The public’s tacit support for the killings is one reason local authorities, including the police, do not appear interested in finding the killers. Many Davaoeños believe that the executions are helping keep their city safe and do not seem to care that minors are among those being killed as part of a campaign against youth offenders, many of whom are petty thieves.

This is why Davaoeños support Rodrigo Duterte, their tough-talking mayor, who has made it well known that he will stop at nothing to fight criminals.

"I tell the people during elections: If you want a mayor that doesn’t kill criminals, look for another mayor," Duterte told the PCIJ in a recent interview. "I was elected in 1988, reelected in 1992, reelected in 1995, reelected in 2001. That’s my gauge of people’s acceptance."

Still, the mayor, who is also President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s anti-crime consultant, denied having any direct connections with the killings. "I would like to give you this assurance that I have never ordered the killing of anyone," he said. "If I (ever) suggested that I’m abetting it, well, I will have to live with that."

In late September last year, Duterte described the series of killings of suspected criminals as unlawful. But he also made it clear he was hardly sorry that they were happening. "I do not have any tears for you if you die, you idiots!" he said, referring to drug pushers. "You all deserved to die."

Last March, Duterte once again declared war against teenage gangs, which the local police say are responsible for most of the crimes committed in the city. "If they offer resistance," the mayor told reporters here, "I will not hesitate to kill them. I don’t care about minors."

Such declarations have upset child-rights advocates, including Councilor Angela Librado. The chair of the city council’s committee on women and children, Librado notes that while the mayor "hasn’t really violated any law," his statements "send the wrong signal to the public. The signal is that, it’s okay for these people to die because they are useless anyway."

Fair game

If anything, Duterte’s contempt for teenage gangs and his encouragement of extra-judicial methods to deal with them have made children in conflict with the law fair game. Two weekends ago, three minors who had brushes with the police were killed in separate incidents by unknown assailants.

One of the casualties was Alexander Buenaventura, a 19-year old toughie who was gunned down on Dec. 15. Duterte had singled him out in his TV program in March. "Dodong," the mayor called out to Buenaventura on the air, "I’m warning you, our paths will cross one day."

But child-rights advocates say the most daring display of contempt toward "useless" children happened in October last year. As activists prepared to march around the city to condemn yet another rash of killings of juveniles that month, gunmen shot dead two minors right in one of the streets the demonstrators had planned to take in the downtown area. The boys had been suspected snatchers. Said Ariel Balofinos, advocacy officer of the Kabiba Alliance for Children’s Concerns: "We are really angry. It’s as if the killings were staged in time for our rally."

A few days later, Senior Inspector Leonardo Felonia, chief of the San Pedro district police station, declared that the extra-judicial killings targeting children in conflict with the law were a "practical" way to deal with crime. At least 18 extra-judicial killings have taken place within the jurisdiction of the San Pedro police, which also covers Bankerohan, where most of the city’s teenage gangs come from.

Like Duterte, the police have washed their hands of the killings. But this has not stopped many people from speculating that local authorities are behind all these, even if the media keep on pushing the idea of the existence of a Davao Death Squad or DDS.

"The DDS has no face," observes Tambayan program officer Pilgrim Guasa. "But when you ask gang members and their families, they can pinpoint who are the ones doing all these killings. Usually, these killers have a connection one way or the other to policemen, ex-policemen, assets, civilian law enforcers. There are those who say some of the killers are former New People’s Army rebels. One thing is certain: the killers are known in the community."

Why none of these self-styled executioners has been caught is explained by Bernie Mondragon, executive director of the Kabataan Consortium, a group of child-rights NGOs: "Of course no one would want to come out and testify. Who would? This is the usual line by the police: no witness, no case. But I think that, deep inside, the police think the killings are valid and justified, hence the inaction."

(To be continued)